Rob Kelly writes about football, occasionally adequately. If Twitter is your thing, catch up with his inane ramblings @robkelly2.

Manchester United's Gary Neville was crass to suggest that footballers are worth their astronomical wages

Interesting quotes from Gary Neville in the Sun on Thursday, in which he has defended the exorbitant salaries that professional footballers are paid, insisting that "without the player, you have nothing".

Neville says: “Others earn billions selling rights and 75,000 come to watch us every week. There’s a product there that people love. Fans are crucial but without the player you have nothing.”

The Manchester United defender went on to (somewhat surprisingly, considering his loyalty to United) defend those players such as Ashley Cole or Emmanuel Adebayor who defect to a rival club, earning a much higher wage in the process.

He says: "Architects leave their business, caterers move restaurants – this is life. People want a better wage. Is there too much money in other businesses, like banking? When a kid kicks the ball aged six, he is thinking about dreams, not money."

The debate over whether players earn too much money is about as old as Neville himself, but it is surprising that someone like Neville, who tends to be seen by most as down-to-earth and one of the more intelligent footballers out there, would come out with these comments.

The average salary in the UK is believed to hover at around the £24,000 mark, while key workers such as a community nurse can expect to earn £1,000 above the national average. A firefighter earns around £26,800 per year. In the wake of these statistics, can anyone truly claim that John Terry, for example, is worth £131,000 per week?

I do not blame footballers for the salaries they earn, after all if someone is prepared to pay you vast sums of money to play football, then you take it. But it is crass to suggest that the head-spinning figures involved are justified, and particularly insensitive to come out with these comments at a time when unemployment levels have risen to a 13-year high, with 2.47 million people out of work.

Neville would also do well to remember that the players may be important, but without the fans there would be no money pouring in to clubs each week through ticket sales, advertising and commercial revenue streams, and hence no astronomical wages paid out.